
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html class="client-nojs" lang="en" dir="ltr">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8"/>
<title>Camera response curve - PanoTools.org Wiki</title>




<style media="screen" type="text/css" title="Screen style sheet"> @import url(manual.css); </style>

<meta name="generator" content="MediaWiki 1.35.3"/>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"/>





<!--[if lt IE 9]><![endif]-->
</head>
<body class="mediawiki ltr sitedir-ltr mw-hide-empty-elt ns-0 ns-subject page-Camera_response_curve rootpage-Camera_response_curve skin-vector action-view skin-vector-legacy">


<div id="content" class="mw-body" role="main">
	<a id="top"></a>
	
	
	<h1 id="firstHeading" class="firstHeading" lang="en">Camera response curve</h1>
	<div id="bodyContent" class="mw-body-content">
		<div id="siteSub" class="noprint">From PanoTools.org Wiki</div>
		
		
		
		
		
		
		<div id="mw-content-text" lang="en" dir="ltr" class="mw-content-ltr"><div class="mw-parser-output"><p>The <b>camera response curve</b> is
a curve showing the relation between amount of incoming light and image pixel values of a digital camera.
</p><p>This curve is sometimes also called <b>Opto-Electrical Transfer Function</b>. 
</p><p>Although optical sensors work quite linear (a certain amount of photons coming in causes a proportional amount of electrons in the sensor cell), the resulting pixel values are not proportional to the amount of incoming light. This might have several reasons: 
</p>
<ul><li>The analog-digital converter might not work linearly.</li>
<li>A <a href="Gamma.html" title="Gamma">Gamma</a> correction is applied.</li>
<li>A correction is applied to make the image more visually appealing</li>
<li>A white balance is applied to compensate for different light temperature</li></ul>
<p>While the first reason applies to all kinds of images, the other ones apply to non-RAW (<a href="JPEG.html" title="JPEG">JPEG</a>, <a href="TIFF.html" title="TIFF">TIFF</a>) images only. <a href="RAW.html" title="RAW">RAW</a> images should contain linear sensor data.
</p><p>The <b>camera response curve</b> is an issue mainly in <a href="HDR.html" title="HDR">HDR</a> generation where it is necessary to have linear (proportional to light) input data. Non-linear data (= a badly estimated camera response curve) will result in banding in contrast gradients (f.e. around bright lights).
</p>

<!--
Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template)
100.00%   10.851      1 Template:Glossary
100.00%   10.851      1 -total
-->


</div></div><div class="printfooter">Retrieved from "<a dir="ltr" href="https://wiki.panotools.org/index.php?title=Camera_response_curve&amp;oldid=9582">https://wiki.panotools.org/index.php?title=Camera_response_curve&amp;oldid=9582</a>"</div>
		</div></div></body></html>